Sunday, November 16, 2008

"The Backwash"

That's the term I just thought of (I gave it about two seconds--I wanted it to be spontaneous) for when the following happens:

A term is used to describe something, and then it becomes so associated with that new thing, it's then used to desribe the original thing again, now in a supposedly clever way.

Example: Right now, the the front page of SI.com shows a football team who won 56-6, with the headline "Tenacious D."

"Hey, I know, they played good 'D,' as in defense, so I'll think of a pop culture reference with 'D' in it--I've got it, Tenacious D! It's perfect because their defense was tenacious!"

Well, yeah, that's what the term means, and where the band got the name from in the first place! Sports teams would play good defense, it would be described as "tenacious D," and then Jack Black used the phrase as the name of his TV show/rock band/whatever, which is well-known today. Terrible job, SI! Nice backwash!

(Unless I'm missing some further meaning, like the team's star player is Sebastian Tenacious or something, or, even better, the top two defenders looked just like Jack Black and that other due--but even if that's the case, you know people do stuff like this the way I've described anyway, so, I'm just giving that a name.)